Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

58 Among Those Present I'm. to by Witzel Stenography Led to Her Success SECRET recipe for becoming a scenario writer : learn to be a stenographer first ! And Mary Alice Scully has proven that the foregoing suggestion works. She definitely arrived as a film writer by adapting "Stella Maris" (the new version) and one or two other features, and previously she was coauthor, with Arthur F. Statter, of "So Big," "The Mine with the Iron Door," "The Recreation of Brian Kent," and "One Way Street." The necessity of finding a suitable climate for her mother, who was in ill health, brought Miss Scully to California from Boston a few years ago, and on her arrival she had to assume the responsibilities of a wage earner. Like many New England girls of good family, she had learned only the homy arts of housekeeping, cooking, and fine sewing. So she took up stenography. Her first important job was as public stenographer in the Hollywood Hotel, the rendezvous for many scenarists. She was given dictation by a number of them, and had the opportunity to study scripts in the making. Later, she obtained a studio position, and was able to see a picture through from the first adaptation to the final cutting and titling. Some more secretarial work followed with a team of prominent scenarists, in which she had similar opportunities, and then she set out to market her own individual talents. Straight from Argentine WE'VE beard much about the dashing, fascinating South American youths and have even been allowed to feast our eyes on imitations of them on the screen, but now, at last, we have the opportunity of contemplating a sure-enough Argentine youth. This is Manuel Acosta, born just twenty-six years ago in Buenos Aires, grandson of Argentine's president. As such, he naturally lived in the presidential palace at the capital and saw the more cultural side of its life. Although he acquired most of his schooling in his native country, he was sent to Paris at the age of fifteen for a finishing course. . Manuel will tell you, with a most provocative twinkle in very dark-brown eyes, that he led a decidedly gay life in that city despite the fact that he was training to be a banker. Arrangements were finally made for him to take a banking position in New York and he came to this country. At a garden party on Long Island, a Roumanian psychic picked him from a crowd and, taking him to one side, told him he possessed great dramatic talents and urged him to take up a theatrical career. His Latin superstition was so strong that he abandoned the banking idea at once. Meeting Anna Q. Nilsson shortly afterward, he impressed her so that she sponsored his attempts and was instrumental in securing him a part -in "One Way Street." Since then he has played in "The Viennese Medley," "The Making of O'Malley," and in "Flower of the Night." Preparation Pays PERHAPS Napoleon was right when he said that "opportunity consists in beingprepared." Certainly had Gayne Whitman not been prepared for the chances which motion pictures now offer him, he would not have pleased Warner Brothers so well. Opportunity was his in the old days, when he was a member of the Thomas H. Ince stock company. But believing the movies to have no future and himself to have no talent for that particular medium of expression, he left 'em flat and turned to the stag€, enjoving in subsequent vears that thorough training which only stock repertoire gives an actor. As leading man of the Morosco Players in Los Angeles, he became a matinee idol. Screen stars watched his performances with enjoyment ; movie producers kept their eves on him and often proffered inducements to return to the screen. Warner Brothers eventually won him with a long-term contract. He has been featured in varied roles, including that of a ruthless politician, a duke, a society dilettante, an idler, and a hustling business man.